During the past five decades, Peter Bogdanovich has emerged as a Renaissance man of American
cinema.

He studied acting with renowned coach Stella Adler; programmed films for the Museum of Modern
Art in New York; wrote influential studies of John Ford, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock and Orson
Welles; and became an apprentice under B-movie king Roger Corman -- largely uncredited, of
course.

The native of New York also found time to direct more than a dozen films within a diverse range
of genres and styles -- from the 1968 thriller
Targets, with Boris Karloff, to the 2007 documentary
Runnin' Down a Dream, with Tom Petty.

"You know, you get lucky," Bogdanovich, 70, said in a recent phone interview. "Things come
up."

This week, the Wexner Center for the Arts will present a "mini-tribute" to Bogdanovich with
screenings of four of his early films:
Targets;
The Last Picture Show (1971);
What's Up, Doc? (1972); and
Paper Moon (1973).

Bogdanovich will introduce
What's Up, Doc? and participate in a conversation with David Filipi, film/video
curator at the Wexner Center.

"In a way, each film is a genre picture reflecting on a different era of American filmmaking, or
a specific period in American history," Filipi said. "A big chunk of his career was during that
great era of American filmmaking when very personal, very artistic, adult-themed films were also
popular films."

Called an "unabashed sentimentalist about things past, and an ardent film buff" by film
historian Ephraim Katz, Bogdanovich has often drawn from an era when movie palaces had yet to give
way to multiplexes and the studio system ruled.

The Last Picture Show is a pensive portrait of a small Texas town in the 1950s.
Paper Moon, for which 10-year-old Tatum O'Neal won an Academy Award, re-creates
Depression-era rural America in a nod to the films of Ford.

Even
What's Up, Doc? -- which features Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal cavorting in
modern San Francisco -- recalls screwball comedies of the 1930s.

The chilling
Targets, meanwhile, draws quite literally from what came before. The movie
incorporates footage from the 1963 film
The Terror, directed by Corman and released by the famously low-budget American
International Pictures.

Perhaps the least-known of the films to be shown at the center,
Targets tells the seemingly disparate stories of an aging film star (Karloff)
and a gunman (Tim O'Kelly) who embarks on a shooting rampage.

The two story lines converge at a drive-in movie theater.

"Corman called me and asked if I wanted to direct my own picture," said Bogdanovich, who plays
an appropriately fresh-faced director in the movie.

"I was given certain limitations: I could shoot 20 minutes with Karloff in two days; I needed to
use 20 minutes of another Karloff film that (Corman) made; and then I could shoot 40 minutes with
some other actors for 10 days.

"Then (Corman) would have a new 80-minute Karloff picture."

The resulting film, which ended up being completed in 23 days, served as a "tremendous learning
process."

His next film,
The Last Picture Show, earned eight Academy Award nominations, including best
picture and best director.

Bogdanovich's projects would continue to be marked by variation, although his films in the 1980s
and 1990s largely failed to achieve the commercial success of
The Last Picture Show;
What's Up, Doc?; and
Paper Moon -- all among the highest-grossing movies of their respective
years.

"I don't like to make the same picture again and again," Bogdanovich said. "One of the things
that inspires me is not knowing how to do something.

"The Tom Petty documentary is an excellent example of that . . . and it's the same thing that
happened with
Picture Show.

"I really didn't know anything about Texas. I grew up in Manhattan. I knew that Tony Bennett had
a hit with
Cold, Cold Heart (part of the film's soundtrack), but I didn't know that Hank
Williams had a hit with it first in the South.

"It was a process of discovery. I think it helps me to discover things as I go."

Of his own films, Bogdanovich names the 1981 comedy
They All Laughed as his favorite, although the choice is colored by tragedy.

Along with Audrey Hepburn, Ben Gazzara and John Ritter, the film starred Dorothy Stratten, who
was romantically linked with Bogdanovich when she was murdered by her estranged husband.

"It is a very painful picture to watch, but it's my personal favorite," he said. "That's the
irony of it."

Today, he is perhaps best-known to a younger generation of pop-culture consumers as Dr. Elliot
Kupferberg, therapist to Dr. Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) on
The Sopranos.

He is often asked about the TV show, as well as his experiences working with movie stars such as
Streisand and his close relationship with Welles, whom Bogdanovich first interviewed in 1968.

It was Welles who suggested that Bogdanovich film
The Last Picture Show in black and white.
This Is Orson Welles, conversations between Bogdanovich and the director of
Citizen Kane, was published in 1992.

Ironically, Bogdanovich the film historian is hesitant to access his contributions to American
cinema -- right now, anyway.

"I've made some pictures that I think work," he said. "Audiences like them, and that's good, but
I don't sit around thinking about my legacy.

"I don't like to make the same picture again and again. One of the things that inspires me is
not knowing how to do something. . . . I think it helps me to discover things as I go."

Peter
Bogdanovich
• A double feature of
The Last Picture Show and
Paper Moon will be shown at 7 p.m. Friday in the Wexner
Center for the Arts, 1871 N. High St. Tickets cost $5 and $7. •
Targets will be screened free at 4:30 p.m. Saturday. •
Peter Bogdanovich will introduce
What's Up, Doc? at 7 p.m. Saturday. Tickets for the movie,
followed by an onstage conversation, cost $8 and $10. Call 614-292-3535 or visit .